You need to send a copy of your birth certificate, O/L and A/L results, NIC or a signed form, but there’s no scanner nearby. Your phone camera is good enough, as long as you take the photos the right way. This guide shows how to take scan-quality photos and turn them into one neat PDF.

Step 1: Take good photos of each page

Most “bad scans” come from shadows, tilted pages and blur. Avoid them like this:

  • Use daylight. Stand near a window. Turn off the flash, because it makes a bright shiny spot in the middle of the page.
  • Use a dark, plain background. A white page on a dark table is easy to crop and looks sharper.
  • Hold the phone straight above the page, not at an angle, so the page stays rectangular. Keep your own shadow off the paper.
  • Fill the screen with the page, tap on the text to focus, and hold still for a moment.
  • Check every photo by zooming in on the smallest text. If you can’t read it, take it again.

Step 2: Crop away the table (optional)

If the photos show a lot of table or floor around the page, trim it with Crop Image. Use the “Free” shape and drag the corners to the edges of the paper. It makes the final PDF look like a real scan.

Step 3: Turn the photos into one PDF

  1. Open JPG to PDF.
  2. Choose A4 as the page size, Automatic orientation and a Small margin.
  3. Choose all your photos. Each photo becomes one page.
  4. Put the pages in order with the ↑ and ↓ arrows. For two-sided documents, put the back right after the front.
  5. Tap Create PDF, then Download PDF.

Phones often save photos sideways and record the correct rotation separately. The tool reads that setting, so your pages come out the right way up.

Step 4: Make it smaller if the form has a size limit

Phone photos are large, so a PDF of five pages can be 10–20 MB. If the upload form says something like “max 2 MB”, run the PDF through Compress PDF. Scanned pages usually shrink a lot and stay easy to read. See our full guide on reducing PDF size for online applications.

Front and back of an ID card on one page
Some forms want both sides of your NIC on a single page. Ask a photocopy shop to copy both sides onto one sheet, then photograph that sheet. Otherwise, simply put the front and the back on two pages, one after the other.

Your phone may also have a scanner built in

On iPhone, the Notes and Files apps have a “Scan Documents” option. On Android, the Google Drive app has a “Scan” button. These are handy if you’re scanning right now. The steps above are better when you already have photos, for example ones a family member sent you on WhatsApp, or when you don’t want your documents stored in the cloud.

Watch out
Copies of your NIC, passport and certificates are valuable to scammers. Only send them to official addresses, and prefer tools that don’t upload your files. ToolNest makes the PDF on your own phone.

Common questions

Is a phone photo accepted instead of a scan?

Usually yes, as long as the page is sharp, straight and complete. Some offices ask for a certified photocopy, so check the instructions.

Can I copy the text from my scanned PDF?

No. A scanned PDF is made of pictures, so the text can't be selected or edited. That needs OCR (text recognition) software.

Should I scan in colour or black and white?

Use colour for certificates with stamps, seals or photos. For plain typed pages, black and white is fine if your scanner app offers it, and the file is smaller.

Which image types can I use?

JPG, PNG, WebP and most other image types your browser can open.